panca kanga
Padawan Learner
Julian Jaynes. The Origin of Consciousness and the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind
I have searched on the forum but not yet found a referance to this very interesting book which covers from a novel perspective many of the subjects we are interested in here.
It was published in 1976 and so may well have been discussed on Cass-Chat, but I subscribed to that forum for a little while and don't recall it being mentioned.
There is an over- view on the wiki:
_http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes
Obviously the wiki does not really bring out the points in his work that I find thought provoking.
Jaynes starts with a very nicely writen over-view of the development of ideas about consciousness over the last century or so. He was obviously interested in the history of science and makes a point of referencing original works.
He also has a very interesting discussion on what consciousness is not and what can nevertheless be done without it. I immediately think of G's sleeping and mechanical men, OPs and etc. Again Jaynes makes his points with references to interesting experiments from the field.
He then brings forward his own views on the nature of consciousness and its late arrival in the human psyche. Here I think of Castaneda's Predators Mind, and that what Jaynes is describing is the imposition of a new type of control system imposed after the collapse of the Bronze Age.
Naturaly there are a lot of gaps in the book from the point of view of the discussions here. Jaynes can make no mention of High Strangeness or other speres of reality.
Also he mixes up the civilisations of middle eastern city states with that in existence on the European Atlantic coast and assumes the Greeks of the Illiad were hiers to the Cretan culture. So he confuses his conclusions about the nature of these societies. Taking that into account his book seems to describe two very different cultures indeed. One of which was a strictly hierarchical society of mind controlled slaves run with the aid of enormous databases holding information on everyone and everything done and to be done. (probably what we are moving toward again)
That is enough for now. I have to write this on an old iphone so typing is difficult. Please excuse the typos and mis-spellings.
Anyway, have others come across this book? Does it have any thing useful to add to the discussions here?
I have searched on the forum but not yet found a referance to this very interesting book which covers from a novel perspective many of the subjects we are interested in here.
It was published in 1976 and so may well have been discussed on Cass-Chat, but I subscribed to that forum for a little while and don't recall it being mentioned.
There is an over- view on the wiki:
_http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes
Obviously the wiki does not really bring out the points in his work that I find thought provoking.
Jaynes starts with a very nicely writen over-view of the development of ideas about consciousness over the last century or so. He was obviously interested in the history of science and makes a point of referencing original works.
He also has a very interesting discussion on what consciousness is not and what can nevertheless be done without it. I immediately think of G's sleeping and mechanical men, OPs and etc. Again Jaynes makes his points with references to interesting experiments from the field.
He then brings forward his own views on the nature of consciousness and its late arrival in the human psyche. Here I think of Castaneda's Predators Mind, and that what Jaynes is describing is the imposition of a new type of control system imposed after the collapse of the Bronze Age.
Naturaly there are a lot of gaps in the book from the point of view of the discussions here. Jaynes can make no mention of High Strangeness or other speres of reality.
Also he mixes up the civilisations of middle eastern city states with that in existence on the European Atlantic coast and assumes the Greeks of the Illiad were hiers to the Cretan culture. So he confuses his conclusions about the nature of these societies. Taking that into account his book seems to describe two very different cultures indeed. One of which was a strictly hierarchical society of mind controlled slaves run with the aid of enormous databases holding information on everyone and everything done and to be done. (probably what we are moving toward again)
That is enough for now. I have to write this on an old iphone so typing is difficult. Please excuse the typos and mis-spellings.
Anyway, have others come across this book? Does it have any thing useful to add to the discussions here?
